Posts Tagged With: gender

Sharly has decided to start a kind of coffee house thing at the book store. She’s going to have singers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. On Sunday afternoons and Wednesday nights she’s going to have poetry slams. Friday night was the first night. That’s pretty cool and I’ll get to work some of those times. The best thing about it for me personally, is now I have an official venue when I want to perform my song for Emma. Sharly said we could make it a special party for whatever reason I decide to say I’m having it, and The Convoy and I can perform. That will be weird though because we usually just jam, and it will be strange to perform in front of all the people I know. It will be awesome though to be able to show I’ve been doing something constructive, and by then I’ll have completed my first semester back at school, so I’ll have a lot to be proud of. I just need a way to guarantee that Emma will be there, and I also need to know when she’s planning to move to Spain. Maybe I can call it a going away party, then she’ll definitely be there, but then I’d also have to invite all her friends and family, since we don’t really have the same group of friends. She’s hung out with my friends rarely, but only with me, and not vice versa.

The question is, if I throw the party specifically for her, and all her friends and family are there, would it piss her off or embarrass her if I were to perform for her in front of them? I’ll have to figure something out. But I will be feeling kind of shy up there. I’ll be like Jim Morrison when he used to sing with his back to the audience. Grimm Morrison. “I am the Lizard King, I can do anything.” “I am the crawling king snake and I rule my den.” “Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen.” “Eyes in her nipples.”

Anyway, I remember a long time ago, when Emma used to have conversations with me, this was before it got awkward because my heart would throb and the blood would be pumping to my dick which throbbed as much as my heart, and I’m sure she sensed it. Especially after I professed my love for her. Or maybe it started to go downhill that time we kissed and she slapped me. Anyway, I remember her telling me that she was tired of being sexualized. That was when she’d tell me that she liked being my friend because I don’t sexualize her. But she had no idea what thoughts were going through my mind. I just treated her like a friend and it just got to be too much to contain. But yeah, she said she hated to be sexualized and that she identifies with men more than women, but she is never not a woman. Yet she doesn’t get the pure interaction with men that other men do, because she is no doubt a woman, and the sexualization happens no matter how much they respect her. She told me she wished she could live life in a man’s shoes for a while, not for sexual reasons, but just as an identity, to get to know herself in a different way, and to have people respond to her in a different way. Since sometimes we inadvertently define ourselves by how others view us, and their view of us is usually skewed by gender. She said gender skews perspective more often than race. And she’s saying that as both a woman and a non-white. I’ve heard other women too say that they like to be “one of the guys” but it’s hard to always be treated in a gender neutral kind of way.

Personally, I have a very difficult time treating women like men, or disregarding gender. I feel sexually attracted to most women. There is an inevitable sexual tension between me and most women I interact with. But, the thing is, I’ve got my psychicisms going on and I sense it come from them as well. I perceive their sexualization of me. The difference I guess is that maybe men don’t feel the need to prove themselves beyond gender, but women seem to want that recognition. When a guy is sexualized, it just boosts his ego. In that way, I guess there is an under the surface sexism in our society. Not that men expect the whole barefoot and pregnant thing, but that for many men, a strong woman is a threat against their manhood. If a woman does something better than them, they feel like less of a man. A lot of men don’t feel that way though. I don’t feel that way, and I think most guys in my generation don’t for the most part because we’ve been raised around strong women, the women post suffrage and post equality and all that. Because in our history, those things didn’t happen too long ago. It’s a very young era. But yeah, I never feel threatened by strong women. I admire them. Anyone who feels threatened by someone else’s power, regardless of gender, has their own personal issues they need to contend with, which shouldn’t be imposed on anyone else. My issues are based on myself, not other people. And the strength and abilities of other people don’t cause me to feel like less of a person in anyway. It just gives me inspiration.

I just happen to know what I’m capable of, and I know it’s some good stuff. And I used to use my psychicisms to my advantage, now I’m getting back to that again. They were blocked for a while, or overwhelmed and distorted when I was drinking and drugging. If I’m in a room and someone walks in, I immediately know their mood and how to be around them. I know what their impression is of me, whether or not I know them. I was at Dunkin Donuts the other day, and this guy walked in and I just knew he felt insecure because he was older like 50’s and overweight and he wanted to be young like me, and I’m in good shape. He felt self conscious that I might be judging him because of his age and size. That I would be forming opinions about him as a man or a person. I knew he felt uncomfortable around young people, and he missed his youth. He was going through a phase that plagued him with dissatisfaction and a lack of fulfilment in his life. He traced it back to his younger days and other choices he could have made. So that’s something I don’t want for my self. I don’t want to be older some day and feel unfulfilled. I want to look back on my life with the wisdom I gained through my experiences. I want to look back and forgive myself for mistakes I made along the way, and the pride in how I survived. I want to like who I am when I am older. I don’t want disappointment to cloud my sense of self or shape my identity. And I don’t want my greatest disappointment to be not “getting” Emma. If it never happens, I want to move on from it with dignity. No more groveling. This performance for her will be my final effort. Then she will move to Spain, and maybe I will never see her again.

And though there will always be a part of me that pines for her, essentially I just want her to be happy. And if I’m not capable of making her happy, it doesn’t matter, because she knows how to do that for herself, which makes her a powerful person, regardless of gender.

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